The blighted year that was and its unexpected delights

By Tim Baker

COVID lockdowns and travel restrictions, booms in wetsuit and surfboard sales, the rise of wave pools, conspiracy theories and community spirit. What are we to take away from this strangest of years? What lessons can we learn and what might it foretell about the era we are now entering, particularly for surfers?

 A year that began with the horrors of rampant bushfires, that bled straight into the challenges of a pandemic and widespread lockdowns, ensured we all had to recalibrate our hopes and plans for the year, if not the foreseeable future.

 As surfers and ocean lovers, we probably found more silver linings than most in the “unprecedented” realities of 2020. In Australia, the federal government’s COVID supplement seemed tailor-made to cover the cost of a new board or top-of-the-line wetsuit. While gyms, major sporting events and most community sport shutdown, in most parts of the world surfing continued unimpeded as a naturally social-distanced recreation, cleansed by the health-giving properties of sunlight and saltwater.

It was also a helluva time to launch a new ocean-focussed website, with ambitious plans of spurious junkets to world-class waves on distant shores. Who could have guessed the furthest we’d get to travel was to the Central Queensland town of Yeppoon and a man-made lake on a cattle farm to satisfy our thirst for new waves?  Except for our roving photo editor Russell Ord, who had the vast Western Australian coast to explore, from his Margaret River base to the north-west desert lefts, free of interstate interlopers. Yet even Russ had a dislocated shoulder, courtesy of a late Gnaraloo take off,  and a lengthy dry-docked recovery to contend with.

 In story-telling, we say we place our characters under stress to reveal character, and the same can be said of life. So, what was revealed about our surfing communities under the stress of 2020? Herewith, then, a few notable observations and favourite stories from the year that changed everything.

 1.     We really love new boards and wetsuits.

 While much of the economy crumbled, the surf industry enjoyed a boom in sales of hardware, the nuts and bolts of a surfer’s life. Deprived of travel to exotic shores, we splurged instead of new shooters and the finest neoprene. Shapers struggled to keep up with demand and blanks and fibreglass were in short supply. Wetsuit sales set new records. The surf industry got back to, well, surfing equipment.

 2.     Some of us will do anything for a few sweet rides.

In a year of closed borders and travel restrictions, some intrepid characters still managed to find their way to uncrowded wave havens to enjoy the absence of tourists. Our favourite story was that of Polish surfer Tomek Niewiadomski, who found himself at the Kandui Resort in the Mentawai Islands at the start of the pandemic in February and wisely decided to stay put, rather than return to a cold, bleak lockdown at home. His reward was months of uncrowded perfection and a rapid rise in his surfing ability. “I can definitely say that thanks to being on an island where I could surf virtually non-stop for a few months, I learned more than in the past 10 years,” he said.

Other notable COVID travellers included the GOAT Kelly Slater, who managed to find a way into Bali to enjoy uncrowded Padang Padang and Uluwatu, and Josh Kerr who ensconced himself at the Kandui Villas with his daughter Sierra, in the Mentawais, in the ultimate father/daughter extended surf trip.

But our nod for the most intrepid surf traveller of 2020 goes to legendary surf skipper Martin Daly who remained at sea cruising through Melanesia at the helm of his luxurious surf charter Indies Trader III.  Martin reckons he discovered more new surf breaks than he had since his Mentawai heyday 30 years ago, but he did it all without paying guests, and with only his Indonesian crew for company. “I was in PNG and cleared out to go to the Solomon Islands and while at sea both countries closed their borders, and I became unemployed and stateless on the same day,” he recalls wryly.

 3.     Wave pools are here to stay.

 Though the virus interrupted business at many of the world’s rapidly expanding network of wave pools, the controlled environment of man-made waves meant surfing and even surfing contests were possible in the chlorinated confines of Kelly’s Surf Ranch, Europe’s Wave Gardens, Melbourne’s UrbanSurf, Yeppoon’s Surf Lakes and the Waco wave park in Texas. The ethics and energy consumption of human-made waves still requires scrutiny in the time of climate change and emissions reductions, but the surfing public has spoken with their patronage. The novelty value of wave parks has given way to a regular complement to many surfer’s ocean-going lives and FIFO missions to Melbourne’s UrbanSurf, conveniently located close to Tullamarine airport, are now a reality. UrbanSurf welcomed over 100,000 guests in 2020 and added a high-end Three Blue Ducks eatery to their establishment, as well as breaking ground at UrbanSurf Sydney. Surf Lakes are fielding licensees from around the world and exploring how to turn their Yeppoon R&D facility into an open-to-public wave pool, while the Surf Ranch is also coming to Queensland on the Sunshine Coast.

 4.     The rise of DIY.

 Bunnings was just about the toughest place to maintain social distancing, as the hordes descended like locusts to embrace everything from vegie gardening to keeping chooks to home improvements. For surfers, it meant projects like building your own board rack or fitting out your van for surf exploration rose to the top of the to-do list. And we had you covered with former pro surfer turned chippie James Woods’ step-by-step guide to building a board rack, and Russ Ord’s custom fit out of his Landrover Defender, two of our most popular stories for the year.

 5.     We love our shapers.

 One of our most popular stories was The Re-Birth of Nev, on the return to the shaping bay of popular shaping legend Nev Hyman after a lengthy hiatus, with his 80s-themed range of hybrids and a Rabbit Bartholomew signature quiver for the, ah, mature surfer. Many of you clicked on Beau Young’s Evolution of a Model, on the development of his Double Diamond model, based on his famous father Nat’s world title winning board Magic Sam at the 1966 world championships in San Diego. And another longboard world champ Rachael Tilley earned a broad audience for the story of her own model, the Extra Shot, a mid-length designed in collaboration with Beau.

 6.     Science can be fun.

 At the other end of the surfboard design spectrum our story, Actually It Is Rocket Science, explained how an Italian aerospace engineer and surfer living in Norway, Luca Oggiano, was lending his expertise to the complex business of surfboard design. Luca’s collaboration with the Surfboard Warehouse saw him using his computer simulations to assess the performance of various designs and measure lift, buoyancy, speed and drag. “The fun part is, there are a lot of myths behind surfboards. We can put a number to the beliefs people have, and quantify feelings that aren’t usually quantifiable,” he said.  While he values the role of the traditional hand-shaper, he thinks his work can help surfboard makers improve performance in a range of key areas. “I think there is enormous potential from materials to consistency of shapes of the boards.  Fins are an extremely hot topic. I think we’ll see 3D printing fins and boards, but I’m not sure we’ll see something like the thruster again. There’ll be new, more complex shapes popping up, and the advance of wave pools will move everything – like asymmetrical boards, for example, if you’re only going to ride a right in a pool.”

 7.     Women surfers are not going anywhere.

 The rise of women’s surfing continued apace, with all-women’s surf groups just the latest manifestation of the feminising of our surf spots. Our story on this phenomenon, The Surfing Sisterhood, explored the supportive environment offered by these groups that challenge stereotypes around a male-centric surf culture. “I love seeing all the groups of women that have emerged to encourage new women to learn, to cheer their whitewater triumphs, and answer their questions about pop-ups, swimwear brands and managing fear,” says Dr Rebecca Olive, a Senior Research Fellow in the faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences at the University of Queensland. “These groups are super honest and open and vulnerable, and they have the kinds of conversations that used to be taboo in surfing.” 

 We also checked out the signature softboard range of surfer, artist and big wave charger Flick Palmateer, met the woman behind the Groove Girls surfing group Steph Teixeira, and got to know a young woman on the rise in the surf industry, world longboard champ and newly appointed WSL partnerships coordinator Rachael Tilley.

 8.     Ry Craike has a very nice life.

 One surfer who appeared almost entirely unfazed by COVID restrictions was WA charger Ry Craike, whose popular YouTube series, Off Grid With A Kid, documents his remarkable family life exploring the WA coast for waves and fish. If you are looking for reassurance that family commitments need not slow down your ocean-going lifestyle, look no further. With partner Michelle Reeves, young son River, and a second child on the way, Ry gets thoroughly pitted, hauls in an indecent number of fish in his hometown of Kalbarri and collects cockles in the calm waters of Shark Bay in north-west WA. The sense of freedom and love of the marine environment this young family exudes remains our inspirational touchstone for a challenging year. And there’s a lesson there for all of us.

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